Lazy Sundays

Well, it’s been a long, long, long time in the making, but I’ve finally updated my portfolio a teeny little bit (not too much to be overwhelming, of course!) There’s this portrait of my gorgeous little sister:

and a “new” website (that was completed months ago). I really don’t like updating my own website!

But I’m determined that it’s about time to do it, especially given that I’m about to move again, and that means that my address as listed on the website will be even more wrong than it is currently. (Sure, in theory it only takes two minutes to change it, but that’s not how I work…if I’m going to spend two minutes, I’m going to be there three hours trying to fix all the little things.) At any rate, all the little things have really added up, and it’s time for some major-ish rearranging.

Actually, the most dramatic upgrade has already happened, and that was my finally giving in to the whole “blog” phenomenon. It took years, but I finally buckled, and I’m sort of enjoying it. What sold me on WordPress is how monstrously simple it is—I actually started using it the place of a word processor, and I find it much smarter: it auto-saves constantly (good for those of us prone to data loss), it’s totally un-bloaty, it’s faster than typing out my own html, and it auto-formats my smart quotes. God, I love smart quotes. I actually spent an hour or so today formatting a client’s novel to get rid of all the dumb quotes, hyphens, and “period” ellipses. I don’t know why these tiny details are so important to me–but I suspect that there’s a place where the grammar-fascist in me meets the typophile, and proper typography is born. Or maybe it’s just that I, embarassingly enough, didn’t know about smart quotes and such for so long that I now consider them to be something of a litmus test for “quality” design?

Smart quotes aside, the news/blog section has all been redone, and I like it a lot, and may even get into the habit of using it more frequently. WordPress is really great and easy to develop themes for (once you figure out what you’re doing), which I’ve been doing of late for Lilith Saintcrow, who writes novels about girls who kick ass and take names (all told, the best kind of lady). I’ve got a couple more weblog-based websites in the works, so I’m learning a lot these days.

On a side note, why is there always an elephant (in the room) on my to-do list? I’m a notorious list-maker, and I’ll sometimes prioritize my lists in order of importance, not that I follow my own order religiously. For example, today I’m at #12, but #3 is still sitting there patiently, un-crossed, with three exclamation marks following it. It’s the most vital thing on my list, but I’m betting it’ll be the one thing that’ll end up being neglected. Is this some kind of subconscious self-mutilation wherein I’ll always sabotage myself for the work that is most important? How do I trick myself into thinking “eat three tubs of chocolate fudge icing” is the Elephant Task, instead? I’ve read a few productivity-type tips that recommend things like offering to wash a friend’s car, or pay them $50, if you don’t complete the Elephant by the end of the day (the theory being that we’re all inherently lazy, and the only way to make us do something is by threatening us with something more unpleasant), but I feel like that’s somehow compounding the pressure of the situation, thereby inflating the psychic block.